Proper Linux, On An ESP32

November 7, 2026 by Jenny List 32 Comments

The ESP32 series of microcontrollers feature a lot on these pages, offering as they do a significantly powerful processor and in most cases, wireless connectivity. One recent member of the bewilderingly large family is the ESP32-S31, It’s a dual-core RISC-V unit with WiFi 6, and if that’s not interesting enough there’s the news that it runs Linux. Not -nommu Linux, but the full-fat version, as it has a memory management unit.

Before you imagine a superlative experience, it’s worth the reminder that the available resources will not give it much when it comes to computing power. But there’s an Espressif GitHub repository, and work on a port of a 6.x kernel, so you should be able to do something with it. A quick look on AliExpress finds dev boards at a range of prices, so the cost of experimenting shouldn’t be too high.

This moment at which the paths of microcontroller and full-fat SoC start to cross has been on the horizon for quite a while, and it’s exciting to see it finally arrive. Expect more similar chips in competition with this one, and more power too. Meanwhile see our noting the launch of the S31.

A Ridiculous Journey To Set The Clock In A 2014 Renault

November 4, 2026 by Tom Nardi 10 Comments

As difficult as it may be to believe, it’s not possible to adjust the time on a 2014 Renault Latitude’s in-dash navigation system unless you have an original SD card with valid map data on it. If you lose that card, or never had it in the first place because you’re not the original owner of the vehicle, you’re out of luck.

That is, unless you’re [Rasmus Moorats]. Not willing to pay for an original Renault SD card just for the privilege of adjusting the time on his vehicle’s dashboard, he set out to hack the navigation system so he could fiddle with its parameters manually.

You might think that the end result of this hack is really only interesting if you happen to own a Renault of a similar vintage, and to a point you’d be right. The part that’s worth sticking around for even if you don’t have an applicable vehicle is the fascinating process of poking and prodding at the car’s embedded Linux operating system which [Rasmus] was kind enough to document for us.

There’s a lot of ground covered in the write-up, but the short version is that while the navigation system has the ability to load scripts from the SD card, as designed there are pretty strict limits on what said scripts can actually do. The trick for [Rasmus] was to find a way to break out of the limited sandbox.

After a number of only partially successful attempts, he finally found the solution by using the script’s built-in logging functions to overwrite the operating system’s core_pattern string which is executed whenever a process crashes. By then using a different function of the scripting language to intentionally crash a binary, he was able to execute commands of his choosing, and in turn modify the configuration file that held the time data.

If you’ve ever found yourself trying to hack your way through a locked down embedded Linux system, we’re willing to bet at least a few of the tricks [Rasmus] outlines here could come in handy. As for hacking obstinate in-dash navigation and entertainment systems, it gets even harder on more modern vehicles.

Trying To Get Linux Running On A Nokia E6

October 22, 2026 by Zoe Skyforest 30 Comments

The Nokia E6 is a smartphone from back in the old days when Symbian was a thing. [fluffleswaffled] has been doing the work to get the ancient handset running Linux instead, because that’s ultimately cooler than what the phone shipped with out of the box.

There isn’t an unlocked bootloader on the E6, so instead, [fluffleswaffled] used an altogether different route to boot Linux. A Symbian app is used to load the kernel and device tree into RAM, at which point the MMU and caches are turned off and the device jumps into Linux. It’s a one-way trip, from which there is no way back to Symbian without a power cycle. The setup nets a terminal on the phone’s own screen, and the hardware keyboard and touchscreen are functional. The display is controlled by a Broadcom VideoCore III, with [fluffleswaffled] capturing messages from Nokia’s original display driver to create a custom kernel driver that replays them.

There’s an issue, though. The phone doesn’t stay in Linux land for long — it always resets within a couple minutes of booting into the alternative OS. [fluffleswaffled] believes this is because the phone’s baseband chip is supervising the application processor, and killing things once it’s detected that the Symbian mobile stack has stopped running. They’re hoping that someone with experience with Nokia basebands or the relevant hardware can point them in the right direction to get this hack running for more than 3.5 minutes at a time.

There probably isn’t a great deal of utility in getting Linux running on a 2011 smartphone, but we love the hustle nonetheless. We’ve seen this done before, though, and it’s always interesting to learn what it takes to get the OS booting on a new platform. If you’re whipping up similar hacks in your home lab, don’t hesitate to let us know on the tipsline.

Linux Kernel Drops AI Tag Requirement, Uses Meta AI For Code Reviews

October 15, 2026 by Maya Posch 99 Comments

Since we last covered the way that the Linux Kernel project has been dealing with the influx of code created using LLM-based coding assistants, all the way back in April, things have changed a lot, with most recently the Linux maintainers deciding to fully drop the requirement to mark LLM-assisted commits with the Assisted-by tag.

While not a fully uncontroversial decision – as also reported by Phoronix – with key maintainers already having made this decision it seems certain to proceed. This is not the only change made fairly recently, with a ‘Sashiko’ bot introduced that is supposed to handle code reviews.

In a July LKML post [Linus Torvalds] defends this decision, with a follow-up post in August by [Jakub Kicinski] it being stated that budget has been secured for using Meta’s LLMs, using said LLM-based resources for reviewing patches, as well as creating and editing commit messages. As noted by [Jakub] they’re running multiple frontier models on each patch to try and weed out confabulations.

Whether this will prove to be the right decision remains to be seen. Whereas most open source projects have firmly banished or heavily curtailed LLM-based contributions on slop, copyright as well as licensing grounds, the Linux Kernel project may be an interesting experiment in what the outcome of the exact opposite approach will be.

No More Windows For The Dutch Government, Ze Kiezen Nu Linux

September 29, 2026 by Jenny List 101 Comments

The events of the last few years have caused many in Europe to re-evaluate their reliance on large offshore technology companies, with a corresponding move to home-grown EU-based alternatives. It’s one thing when individuals or companies do this, but another entirely when it’s an entire country. So the news that the Netherlands is building their own Linux distribution to replace Microsoft Windows in government installations, is not inconsequential. The Tweakers site linked actively breaks out of Google Translate, so you may have to rely on your browser’s translation tool if you are not a Dutch speaker.

The Digitaal Autonome Werkomgeving Overheid, or Digital Autonomous Work Environment, is a distro based upon NixOS, itself originally a product of a Dutch university. It comes complete with all the office and collaboration applications needed to replace Windows, and is reported to have been tested already by a small group of Dutch government workers.

The influence of this move is likely to be a huge one for Microsoft, given that governments have huge numbers of operating system seats. But perhaps more important than the OS itself are the extras that Microsoft would like to sell to its OS customers, such as AI services. We’d expect that there will be managers in Redmond paying close attention to Europe in the wake of this move.

Meanwhile the Netherlands has a vibrant hacker community, and we can imagine that this move will be welcomed in those quarters. All Netherlands government online services are accessed through an ID verification app called DigID, and it’s a lament we’ve heard from our Dutch friends that this only works with Windows, Android and Apple platforms. If this means a Linux version will appear on the back of an NL government Linux distro, we know some people who will be very happy indeed.

NL flag: SpinnerLaserzthe2nd, CC0. Tux: Larry Ewing (lewing@isc.tamu.edu) and The GIMP. Attribution.

How Pixar Stopped Worrying And Learned To Love Linux

September 23, 2026 by Tyler August 64 Comments

If you weren’t already aware, it will probably come as no surprise to hear that the pioneering computer-animation studio Pixar built its early workflow on Silicon Graphics SGI workstations. These were beefy Unix machines that, as the name implied, were developed for graphical work. When the age of the RISC workstation came to a close, many Unix users were pushed onto Windows NT — but not at Pixar. At Pixar, they learned to love the penguin.

It comes down to hardware rather than software. You know the story: PCs got faster and cheaper with different vendors competing for a giant market, while the world of RISC workstations couldn’t keep its lead. Pixar would have been happy staying on Unix workstations, even SGIs if that had been a practical option — but with every project increasing the load on the render farms, it wasn’t. Yet Pixar’s entire workflow was predicated on a Unix environment. They had written a couple million lines of code for their internal use, and really didn’t want to port it over to Windows, even after a mistaken rm command nearly cost the world Toy Story 2.

The path of least resistance would be to port to something more similar to IRIX’s Unix environment, something POSIX compliant. That path led Linux, and by 2001, the port was done. By 2003, a new render farm using Xeon processors brought the whole studio to Linux and x86, which has since become an industry standard.

We’re left with only two questions: one, why didn’t more industries — like the CAD/CAM world — that were also reliant on Unix Workstations follow Pixar and Hollywood onto Linux, and two, why did Pixar go with Linux instead of some variety of BSD? [Crierlon] doesn’t address either question, but we’re betting some of you might have an idea. Let us know in the comments if you have the inside scoop; inquiring minds want to know!

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A Hotspot Becomes A Handheld

September 19, 2026 by Jenny List 7 Comments

A Linux handheld computer is, in theory, easy and inexpensive given the availability of single-board computers, but in practice the budget invariably edges well into three figures. There’s an interesting alternative from [bkovac] that won’t break the bank as much, using a cheap 4G wireless hotspot, an iPhone USB keyboard case accessory, and, though a cheaper display could suffice, a fancy Adafruit Sharp memory display.

The hotspot is available from AliExpress for around 20 dollars/Euros/pounds, and it’s referred to by its model number, MF800. It’s powered by a Qualcomm MSM8916, also known as the Snapdragon 410, which you might have found in a budget cellphone early in the last decade. Importantly, though, it’s supported by mainstream Linux, and while it’s by no means the fastest on the block, it can be a poor man’s alternative to a Raspberry Pi. It comes with a small SPI display, but this project replaces it with a much bigger Sharp SPI memory display.

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